Obama’s Economy Is Driving Well, Considering the Hand Brake Is On

The fact that the US economy is in recovery, even modestly, is something of a miracle given the number of factors working against it. This is absolutely unique in American economic history: a recovery without the housing market expanding substantially; a recovery with state and local government employment shrinking for three years in a row; and a recovery with households owing, on average, well over 100 percent of their after-tax income in debt.

Yet even with all three of these factors dogging us, we have avoided slipping back into recession.